Due to their low income, 8,000,000 Colombians can't join the banking system. This means they cannot save or purchase certain essential goods. So we have created Payphone Bank, an OS that can turn Tigo-Une Payphones into micro-saving devices which work like digital-era piggybanks, where millions of people can deposit their coins into their savings account and thus save or access micro-loans that allow them to purchase basic products and services.

We have created a software that converts the existing 13,000 Une pay phones across Colombia into de facto digital banking terminals—with no hardware intervention. This feat is made possible by an Asterisk-based Voice Response System that controls the pay phones via DTMF tones. Users can activate an account at any Une store just by showing a photo ID. Then they can navigate the menus though an automated operator. Every coin they insert is added to their total balance. Through the voice activated menus they can manage their account, purchase basic products and services and even access micro-loans to buy essential appliances previously out of their reach. This technology has already been implemented across Colombia, allowing users to buy public transport tickets and pay for their data plans and utility bills. More features will be added to the software throughout 2017, expanding the possibilities por users.

Updated pay phones are now being used an average 6,000 times a month to use the new services like data recharges, payment of utility bills and the purchase of public transport tickets. This is a crucial change in how people look at and interact with Payphones—it adds a whole new dimension to an outdated technology and transforms its role in the mind of the consumer.

Payphone Bank is an OS that turns 13,000 already existing pay phones across low-income areas of Colombia into micro-savings terminals for the unbanked population. This creates a whole new interaction between this low-end target and the brand through a service which enhances their quality of life giving them access to goods and services previously out of their reach.

In the age of 15-dollar cellular phones, the target audience for pay phones in Colombia is mainly comprised of the low-income, unbanked population. Since the pay phones are already installed in strategic locations in these communities, we can capitalize on them. A central Voice Activated Response System controls them via DTMF tones, with no need for hardware interventions. And since pay phones are already a familiar tool for these communities, the system is non-intimidating even for users who have never interacted with the banking world.

Tigo-Une provides affordable communications through 13,000 pay phones to the low-income population. Pay phones, however, are losing relevance in the digital age. So their goal for 2017 is to make them relevant again through new services that will keep the low end target engaged with the ultimate goal of integrating up to 8 million unbanked Colombians into the financial system.